Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Teacher Education, Michigan State University

The Afterlife of Black Girls and Women in STEM: Narrative Reimaginings of STEM and Making

While Henrietta Lacks died a physical death in 1951, the ways in which she is made part of the scientific canon and curriculum —as well as other Black women—are still living and becoming. As an enterprise, STEM access and participation have been limited to minoritized people, due to socio-historical factors and the continued issues of power and authority related to the masculine Eurocentric culture of the field. This, in turn, can be reflected in STEM as a practice (e.g. medicine, research, etc.) as well as in science learning (formally and informally). This study explores the ways in which the historical narrative of Henrietta Lacks, the living narratives of Black women science PhDs and the futuristic narratives of Black girls in a community-based STEM-rich makerspace disrupt what we know as STEM while prompting reimaginings of STEM curriculum and “making”.